In search of Bilderberg

[faceless]

Tailed from the airport, by this and hundreds of other different cars at different stages. Photograph: Charlie Skelton
Our man at Bilderberg: in pursuit of the world's most powerful cabal
Once a year, it is rumoured, the global elite gather at a luxury hotel to chew the fat and fine-tune their secret plans for world domination. We sent Charlie Skelton in pursuit
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
13 May 2009

I don't quite know why I'm on a flight to Athens, except that it seems like the right thing to do. I'm flying out on a last minute whim to hang around outside a conference which may, or may not, be happening and to which I've not been invited. None of you has either. You won't have read about it. You won't have seen a guest list, you won't see photographs of it. It isn't happening. It doesn't exist. I'm flying out to Athens for no reason at all. To have a holiday I don't deserve and can't really afford. Maybe catch a little sunstroke, grab some food poisoning, and come home. Pointless.

Unless, of course, the rumours are true. Unless, as a handful of people are saying, this weekend is Bilderberg. The yearly alignment of the distant stars that shape our destiny. A long weekend at a luxury hotel, where the world's elite get to shake hands, clink glasses, fine-tune their global agenda and squabble over who gets the best sun loungers. I'm guessing that Henry Kissinger brings his own, has it helicoptered in and guarded 24/7 by a CIA special ops team.

If it's happening at all, Kissinger will be here. David Rockefeller will be here. Presidents of banks, and chairmen of boards. The Ben Bernankes and Condoleezza Rices of this world. Heads of oil companies, media magnates, the Queen of the Netherlands and Peter Mandelson. Probably Ben Bernanke, possibly David Cameron. Politicians and financiers from all five corners of the globe (don't let them tell you there are four). And me.

I arrived last night, under cover of darkness. I told the cab driver to stop 50 metres from the hotel. He asked why. I couldn't tell him that it was so I could case the entrance for FBI lenses. I simply muttered that I couldn't explain. His eyes lit up. "Aha! I see! I know!" What did he know? And who is that following us? A man in a BMW. Definite spook. Get a grip.

The driver drops me on a dark corner of the Athenian Riviera, pats me on the shoulder and says: "You want to smoke some dope?" I decline. I need my senses sharp. I scurry into the hotel, glancing into parked cars, looking for vans with mirrored windows. There aren't any. At reception they seem to have lost my booking (the tentacles of Bilderberg reach far!), but eventually I get checked in, go upstairs, unpack, have a shower, go downstairs, step outside, look across the street and realise I've scurried into the wrong hotel. This is who Bilderberg are up against.

An embarrassing hour later, I set out again from the right hotel, determined to find the location where Bilderberg is said to be happening. Get some early photos, maybe see Hillary Clinton arrive. Although I'll settle for Ken Clarke. It's getting late. Joggers are out. FBI? Secret service? Almost certainly. I trudge on determinedly. After about half an hour I realise I turned the wrong way out of my hotel and I am walking up a deserted coastline towards Athens. I go back to bed. Another untroubled night for Bilderberg.

At breakfast, a heavy-set man with hairy forearms sits opposite me and fiddles with his mobile phone. Definite spook. He eats a hard-boiled egg and watches me struggling with my Coco Pops. My first discovery of the day is to find out what happens to Coco Pops when they're left to sit for a decade in a Greek presentation dish. They turn to gravel. The spook leaves before me. He got what he came for: a photo of me, sneaked on his mobile and wired already to Quantico in Virginia. And a hard-boiled egg.

Outside, it's a beautiful day, the air smells of sun and seashells, and there is no sign of a global cabal meeting anywhere near. I have a wander. From my meagre, third-hand, internet forum sources, I think I know the hotel where Bilderberg is happening: the Astir Palace resort. Further from my hotel than it looked on Google maps. Note to self: always check the scale on the zoom.

A dozen promontories and dusty dead-ends later, and I'm ready to give up. It's too hot. I don't have a sunhat. The world is going to hell and Vouliagmeni is full of litter. What is it with the Greeks and bins? Do they not see them? Do they not believe they exist? Hidden in plain sight … it's the Bilderberg way. It's too hot. I need some water.

And then, on the pavement ahead, there he was. I recognised him from the videos. The braces, the loose shirt, the grizzle. The tattered leather briefcase, packed with dark secrets. It was the doyen of Bilderberg hunters himself, Jim Tucker. I addressed him. "Excuse me ... Mr Tucker?" "Let's go into my hotel and talk." Tucker is a man in a hurry. He's not getting any younger, and his old enemy Bilderberg is getting stronger. "Hot enough for you?" I venture. "Too hot for a fatboy," he growls.

The exchange makes me feel like a resistance fighter exchanging codewords. Assured of my credentials, Tucker gestures me into his hotel lobby. I can't believe my luck. Suddenly I'm not alone, I'm not hallucinating. Bilderberg is here. Where you find Jim Tucker, you know Bilderberg isn't far away. He's a herring gull, telling me there are whales beneath. Tucker lights a non-filter cigarette, lays his hat upon the table, and settles back into the lobby sofa to talk ...

Charlie Skelton will be filing regular updates from Athens until he is arrested by shadowy figures in dark glasses


-----------------------

[faceless]

Security goons with special bomb mirrors deciding whether or not to let me in for a cheese omelette.
Our man at Bilderberg: Close, but still no cabal
With the annual secret meeting of the global elite only hours away, the shadowy corporatocracy remains tantalisingly elusive, writes Charlie Skelton
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
13 May 2009

It's B minus one, the day before Bilderberg. And it is definitely happening: I've seen the guns. I thought it might be a good idea to go to the Astir Palace resort for lunch. See just what kind of a cheese omelette the president of the Federal Reserve is going to be enjoying. I didn't get far. At the gates, there were machine guns and men in loose jackets and guards checking under cars for bombs with those mirrors on sticks that morbidly obese people use to check whether they've taken their knickers off.

I should have come for breakfast. Maybe I would have got in. A security guard opened the cab door, leaned in, and asked me if I was staying at the hotel. I gave it my best shot. Not much of a shot, but my best one. "I'm here for lunch." Smile feebly.

"We're closed now. Only guests." And to the driver, a bark of instructions to turn around. We turned around. I explained to the driver what was happening at the hotel, trying to avoid words like "globalisation", "corporatocracy" and "dissolution of sovereignties leading to supranational control structures". I think he got the gist. "They come to here? The leaders of the world?" He honked amiably at a girl in a bikini. "To have conference, or to have holiday? Now is time for holiday! Look to the beach!"

I looked to the beach. Everyone was splishing about in the shallows, batting tennis balls at each other and reading whatever the Greek equivalent of John Grisham is. John Grisham, probably. The sky is blue; the sea is calm. Even the dogs that sleep on the sand are well fed from the restaurant bins. What could possibly be wrong with the world?

Just up the hill, a small group of people are meeting for the weekend. Might play a bit of ping pong. Where's the harm in that? Might thrash out a few broad brushstroke policies. Microchipping? World Bank? These things need to be discussed. And this is as nice a place as any to discuss them. The hotel offers "gourmet dining, atmospheric bars, and extensive meeting & events areas and services." And the spa has a steam room. And you know how much Kissinger loves to steam ("Hotter! I vont it hotter!")

Independently of me, Jim Tucker failed to get in for a snoop. He stubs out a weary cigarette. I don't sense it's his first. I ask him about the order of business. "This year? They'll be talking about that ridiculous swiiiiiiine flu." And in the five raked-out syllables he gives the word "swine", he paints his distaste of the subject. "They want to use it to turn the World Health Organisation into the global department of health." I have to ask. "Isn't it already?"

"Only for members of the United Nations. Also, they'll be talking about ratifying the international criminal court. Obama is waiting until he gets a sympathetic senate, after the 2010 elections. Then he'll pass it one evening, late in the week: too late for the Sunday papers, too late for the talk shows. It'll happen, and no one will notice. First part of 2011."

I'll say this for Mr Tucker: for a fortune teller, he's giving us details. Nothing about "You will travel overseas" or "Watch out for a man with a D in his name." Like David Rockefeller? "He's 93, but if he's alive, he'll be here," growls Jim. But again, why is this a problem? Why is anyone bothered that a bunch of powerful psychopaths – sorry, sociopaths ... sorry, bankers and politicians – have a yearly get-together? Many people admit to attending. As one of the commenters on my previous piece rightly points out, George Osborne mentioned going to Bilderberg 2008 in his official expenses (apparently he paid for the flights himself). So why worry? Why interrupt your John Grisham for a single second as the limousines roll up the hill?

Perhaps the problem is not that people are meeting up. If there's a problem at all, it's whether or not there is a coherent global agenda, whether this agenda is something towards which people in power are doing their best to advance things, and whether this agenda (if it exists at all!) is a benign one.

For now, my jury is out. Except to say that when it comes to global politics I'm reminded of that Edgar Allan Poe short story: the one in which [WARNING: SPOILER] a purloined letter is concealed out in the open, where everyone can see it. Like large letters written across a map, so large they can't be seen. I can't for the life of me remember which tale it is, Murders on the Rue Morgue or The Purloined Letter. One of those two.

I'm going back to the Astir Palace now. The heat of the day is passing, and afternoon sun looks good on the barrel of a machine gun.

Charlie Skelton will be filing regular updates from Athens until he is arrested by shadowy figures in dark glasses

[faceless]

No fotografia' - the snap of a bemulleted Greek copper that landed Charlie Skelton in police custody at Bilderberg. Photograph: Charlie Skelton/Guardian
Bilderberg: One mention of Sylvester McCoy and it all kicks off
Charlie Skelton is menaced by police with guns (and mirrors on sticks) in his third dispatch from (near) the Bilderberg summit of the global elite
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
14 May 2009

You know your day's gone badly when it ends with you being shouted at in a Greek police station. It wasn't meant to end this way. I'd gone for a gentle sunset walk, up by the Bilderberg hotel, to relax before the big opening day of the elite globalist shindig, watch Phoebus plunge headlong into the western sea, and (yes) maybe sneak a couple of short-lens pictures of the mounting security.

Opposite the hotel gates I took a casual photo out over the bay, limbering up to swivel round and snap off some naturalistic "armed guard having fag and chatting up policewoman" sort of shots. A plainclothes officer jogged across the road and got in my face. "No photos." "Of the sea?" "Give me your camera." "I don't understand." "Passport." "I've got my Oyster card". "Passport." "Driving licence?"

He takes my licence. A group of policemen have sauntered over, and mutter Greekly about the enormous threat to the smooth running of Bilderberg I seem to represent. "What is this?" asks one of the local militia. He takes my notebook. Opens it at random. "What are you writing? What here?" He points to an old 8 Out of 10 Cats joke (well, barely) about what would happen if we had a female Doctor Who. He jabs at it, proof, in black and white, of my status as an agitator. I read it out: "I'm not saying we've already had a female Doctor Who, but Sylvester McCoy put cracks in the glass ceiling."

"Who is this? Syl... Syl..." "Sylvester McCoy." "A friend of yours? He is staying here?" I bite back telling them that Sylvester McCoy is a noted anti-globalist freedom fighter who is here to lead the people's revolt against Bilderberg's liberty-stripping agenda. "It's nothing. Can I have my book back?"

They confer. An imp in my brain tells my hand to reach for my camera and take a photo. Click. Whir. At which point, on a gorgeous May evening on the Athens Riviera, began one of the more stressful hours of my life. Hands went to holsters. "NO PHOTOS!" "HE TAKE FOTOGRAFIA!" "NO FOTOGRAFIA!"

Over came the man with the machine gun. Over came the man with the special mirror-on-a-stick for car bombs. It was the first time in my life, and hopefully the last, that I've been intimidated by a mirror on a stick. They circled round me. One of them, the one in the photo with one hand up and the other on his pistol, kept prodding me in the shoulder, and shouting: "Give the camera! Just give the camera!"

All around me: "Delete! Delete photos!" followed by a lame tug of war for the camera with no great self-belief on either side, which I won. Camera back in pocket. Then it became: "Get in the car!" Get in the car!" I wasn't about to get in the car. I remember saying: "One of you has a machine gun, you're shouting at me, I don't understand why, I took one photograph, this all seems a bit strange. What's going on here?"

One of the nicer policemen, who looked a bit like the short guy from LA Law, the one married to Jill Eikenberry (note to self, update this reference), took me aside. "Very important people coming. Very important. No photograph. Please get in car, we take details, put in computer, you can go." I complained, reasonably I think, that they could simply phone my details through to the station, and check that I wasn't wanted on three continents for acts of terror, but they were having none of it. Prod, prod, prod. Eventually I got in the car. I had to.

They drove me to the police station. Other cars followed. At the station, officers gathered from all quarters. They'd sniffed an incident. A dozen of them stood round me. The Greek chorus reached full voice: "Give the camera! Delete photos! You understand?!" I hated my hands for trembling when I wrote down my father's name so they could look me up on "computer". But at least I got a chuckle hearing them try and pronounce Melvyn.

One of the policewomen smiled. "Delete photos and you can go, no trouble." She looked like Christina Aguilera's slightly butch cousin and I fell on her smile with a thirst. Nearly gave her the camera. Understood in a flash the whole good cop, bad cop thing. Kept my camera in my pocket. Smiled back. "I just want you to tell me if I've broken the law, and if so, are you arresting me?" God, I sound like a cliché of a protester. Oh god, I'm a protester. What are my rights here? "Charge me or release me!" is what I didn't shout. I sat quietly and tried to still my hands in my lap. I smiled at Christina. I was winning.

Suddenly, a "you can go" from the sergeant at the computer. I went. I had my camera. I had my photo. I was free. It was the end of Midnight Express. The Breakfast Club fist in the air. Except that I felt sick and wanted to go to sleep. I slept. This morning, feeling stronger after a slice of breakfast cake, I think I understand: I was the trouble kicking off. I was the agitation they'd been warned about. Very important people. No mistakes. They were wired, pumped up for confrontation, and my photo had been the spark. It's why they'd blown up in my face. Important people arriving. No fotografia.

And then it struck me: there really ISN'T any fotografia. There's none. Not a single member of the mainstream press. Not a single newshound camera on a tripod. Nothing. Nothing is happening here. Nothing to report. The limousines have started to arrive. Nothing to report. They've closed off an entire peninsula. There are roadblocks. Machine guns. Nothing to report. This is Bilderberg's 57th annual meeting. Nothing to report. Susan Boyle plucks eyebrows! Finally, something to report.

Charlie Skelton will be filing regular updates from Athens – even though he has been warned and may not be so lucky next time.

[Brown Sauce]

you could still book a room at this hotel for this period last week over the internet. I got as far as the payment, a dear fuckin' hole, as one might expect ...

[faceless]

Would you have gone there if you'd got it sorted?

I'm quite enjoying the guy's writing - a good balance of humour and seriousness

[Brown Sauce]

ooh no, to friggin' expensive

I was just trying to find out if they were still taking bookings. Normally the bilderberg hotels stop taking bookings for the period. I was surprised to see that it was taking place in Athens ..

his "no fotographia" comments are bang on. No Alex Jones ??

[faceless]

'Nick' and 'John'. Nick is the one in dark glasses, gesturing towards the camera.
Our man at Bilderberg: They're watching and following me, I tell you
Charlie Skelton is now being followed by the police and still hasn't done much more than eat a club sandwich. Global secret cabals have no sense of humour.
Charlie Skelton
15 May 2009

Now I've got too much to report.

I'll talk later about the strange secret circus of limousines, blacked-out windows, sirens, helicopters. No time to relate being detained for a SECOND time, for the crime of being half a mile from the Bilderberg hotel gates trying to take "arty" photographs of limousine wheels as they whisked past. Doing so little wrong that I was doing it while standing next to three policemen who were fine about it. Until the call came through on the radio and the motorbikes and squad cars squealed around me like a bad dream. I'll tell that story later. I have to talk now about what just happened.

But before I begin, please believe me when I say: I haven't gone nuts. I really haven't. Nine times seven is 63 and the capital of Italy is Rome. I know what I know. And I know that I'm being followed. I know because I've just been chatting to the plainclothes policemen I caught following me. As absurd as it sounds, I've just "made my tail".

They're watching me now. REALLY. They're sitting on the wall outside the cafe Oceania or whatever this is called, watching me type this sentence. I asked them in for a coffee but they declined. They laughed sheepishly when I called them Starsky and Hutch. They asked my name. "I told your colleagues. Twice."

They asked again. I told them. I asked back. There was an awkward pause. They're not very good at this. "... ... Nick … … … … and … John." So there we were, me and my shadows. Nick and John. "We're just walking up and down." That was their cover story, and they didn't bother sticking to it. They simply couldn't resist: "How many days you spend here?" – "Where you from exactly?" – "You staying here alone?" I was laughing. It was too bizarre. "What is your job?" I told "John" I wrote jokes for television programmes. He almost instantly forgot. It wasn't on the profile he'd just learned, clearly. "So what papers you write for?"

I noticed them in reception after breakfast. Like I'd noticed the similarly dressed, early-30s, bland-looking fellow the night before. He seemed to be staring at me. I turned round and caught him whispering to the receptionist and looking at me. I swear to God. I know this makes me sound like a lunatic, and if it weren't for my chat just now with Starsky and Hutch I might start assuming I've had a touch of the sun. Last night, the phone rang in my hotel room and someone hung up when I answered. The call came from inside the hotel. I assumed it was one of the other reporters ringing the wrong room. Maybe it was.

I'm just remembering now. I had a shorter than usual breakfast this morning. I came out. "Nick" was alone in the lobby. He was on his mobile. I trotted upstairs to my room. Down the stairs comes "John", also on his phone. I'm slotting together memories now, as I type. I haven't gone mad. This is happening. Was he in my room? They knew I was in breakfast. This is crazy.

Here's what happened next: I headed out of the hotel with my laptop. And I thought to myself: you know what, if they're REALLY cops, they'll follow me. So I stopped, turned round, and waited. Ten seconds. I felt an idiot, standing there, waiting for an imaginary policeman to follow me out. Fifteen seconds. Eureka! Out comes "John" on his mobile phone. He looks confused to see me standing there and crosses the road. I sit down on a wall. He dawdles by a lamppost. I get up, walk to the seafront, turn left, walk a bit, cross the road (gives me a chance to look both ways – and yes, there's "John").

I walk into the far entrance of the cafe. I'm in an episode of The Wire. The cafe is long and thin. I double back on myself and stand, hidden, by the earlier entrance. I'm standing behind a shrub, clutching a laptop to my chest, my heart beating like a Phil Collins solo (on drums, not piano).

I'm just an ordinary guy. A concerned citizen. For this week at least, a blogger. Barely a reporter. A terrible photographer. No threat to anyone. I'm nobody. But just up the hill, in a luxury hotel, there's a meeting of the most powerful somebodies in the world. Bilderberg. I've been hauled off to the police station twice. Before this week, I've never had so much as a cross word with a policeman IN MY LIFE. I once drove at night with my lights off and was pulled over and told not to drive like an idiot. And that's it. I'm not a bad person. I don't even know what I am any more. I think I write jokes for a living. I think maybe I used to. I'm a man clutching a laptop to his chest, trying to breathe quietly. Ten seconds. Fifteen. "John" comes round the shrub and steps back, bewildered.

"Hi".

"I'm no threat, you know that, don't you?"

Poor "John". I felt sorry for him. He wasn't very good at this. I'm not the smartest shoe in the window but it took me all of four minutes to blow his cover.

They didn't want to come for coffee. I asked them to take my photo. They did. I took one of them. "No fotografia! Show me the camera!" Poor "Nick", he was in a real bind. He couldn't remember if he was a policeman or not.

They seem nice, mostly, the police who have been harassing me for standing around and taking bad photos with a cheap digital camera. Yesterday, I got chatting with one of the motorcycle cops before I was bundled off in the squad car. I told him that I hoped tomorrow there would be protests here – not riots, but protests. He agreed. "It would be nice to hear another voice," he said, sadly. A big man in leathers, caught up in something far bigger. "But today I have to do my job. This is not a good situation."

This is not a good situation. It would be nice to hear another voice.

I'm going to pay for my coffee now and head back to the hotel. Just the three of me.

[faceless]

Our man at Bilderberg: I'm ready to lose control, but they're not
Charlie Skelton feels a sudden need to apologise for the trouble he's caused, swiftly followed by a rush of revolutionary rage against the powers that be being so, well, powerful
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
Friday 15 May 2009

I want to talk about Bilderberg 2009. But beyond a simple "yes, it's happening, it's real, the leaders of the world are hanging out here for the weekend", what can I say? It's a private meeting. I don't know if they're discussing global financial unification or the season finale of Grey's Anatomy over their prawn cocktails. I don't even know what the vegetarian option is for starters. Butternut squash?

You're going to have to forgive me for speculating, but that's all I can do. I'm not a proper reporter. I don't have the foggiest of my rights (if any) to stand on public footpaths and point cameras. I don't even have a proper camera. But what I do have is this: a sense of something rotten in the state of Greece. To my nose, there's not a healthy smell wafting down from the Astir Palace. Or maybe that was the egg and pepper roll I had for breakfast.

Sorry if some of these speculations are wrongheaded, but I'm doing a lot of this thinking for the first time and I've only just shaken off my police escort. Sorry if I sound shrill or petulant, self-righteous or precious, sorry if my perceptions have been tilted by anger … sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry for bothering you Mr Bilderberg. I've spent the last three days apologising to everyone. Sorry to the staff at my hotel for having plainclothes officers loafing around in their lobby. Sorry to the plainclothes officers themselves for having to drag them around Vougliameni on a wild goose chase (I bought them some chilled water, and took it to them while they shuffled awkwardly behind a tree). Sorry then to the desk sergeant for bothering her with my predicament: "I'm being followed around like a criminal, I wonder if you wouldn't mind asking them to stop? I'm not doing anything wrong, and it's getting … well … a bit annoying."

I'm going to stop apologising now. I'm going to try and make sense of my experiences. It's not easy; I don't want to sound feeble-minded, but this has been a lot to take in. I feel a bit like I've driven down the wrong alley and suddenly don't recognise anything, and people are staring at me and not simply to admire my hair. I'm jumpy. I think someone has been in my room and moved my laptop. I know this sounds bonkers, I know it does, but I took a photo of it before I left the room and it wasn't where I left it.

Listen to me. I sound like a fruitcake. Three days and I've been turned into a suspect, a troublemaker, unwanted, ill at ease, tired and a bit afraid. And I haven't even walked up the road to the Bilderberg hotel since the whole "get in the car!" incident. I've been trying to stay out of trouble, but trouble has followed me down the hill.

So – to make sense of it. I'm going to begin here: with the face of the first Bilderberg delgate I saw in the flesh. I was trying, lamely, to get a snap of some delegates as they swooshed through Vougliameni in their mirrored limos with their plainclothes motorcycle outriders and police escorts. And one of them had their window open. I was so excited I forgot to bring the camera to my face and took a photo of the hubcap. What I saw I won't forget. It was a 40-something man with his head thrown back, laughing and laughing, the perfect photograph that only my retina will ever see.

And you know what: no wonder he was happy. It must be WAY COOL to be sirened through Greek streets in the back of bulletproof limo on your way to the COOLEST party in the world. You've been invited by the coolest of the cool kids to hang out for the weekend. Your cool cousin's über-cool older brother and his way cool friends have got a keg of beer and a pool in the yard, and their parents are away and you think Jessica might be going. THIS IS THE BEST PARTY EVER! Turn on the sirens! We're coming through! Woohoo!

And your life is already pretty cool. You already own a newspaper or head a thinktank, or you're the UK secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, or you run Fiat, or you're chairman of the Federal Reserve or Queen of the Netherlands, or president of Shell Oil. You run stuff. You have big ideas. You're in control, and control is fun.

Bilderberg is all about control. It's about "what shall we do next?" We run lots of stuff already, how about we run some more? How about we make it easier to run stuff? More efficient. Efficiency is good. It would be so much easier with a single bank, a single currency, a single market, a single government. How about a single army? That would be pretty cool. We wouldn't have any wars then. This prawn cocktail is GOOD. How about a single way of thinking? How about a controlled internet? How about not.

I am so unbelievably backteeth sick of power being flexed by the few. I've had it flexed in my face for three days, and it's up my nose like a wasp. I don't care whether the Bilderberg Group is planning to save the world or shove it in a blender and drink the juice, I don't think politics should be done like this. This might be a facile point, but if they were organising a charity snooker league, they could do it upstairs at Starbucks. If they were trying to cure cancer they could do it with the lights on. Innocent thoughts can be minuted. Or maybe they're simply swingers. Maybe that's why the curtains are drawn. Imagine chucking your key in the tub and pulling out Ken Clarke. Sorry Timothy Geithner, that's the cost of doing business.

I have a confession. (I'm not a swinger, that's not it.) My confession is that being tailed today by Greek special branch, and doubling back through a cafe and catching them out, and buying them chilled water on a hot day like in Beverley Hills Cop, when Eddie Murphy has room service sent to their car – all this was pretty exciting. It's was my own little episode of the Equaliser. (The Greequaliser? No, really no, I'm tired). Being tailed was exciting and funny and absurd and confusing and terrifying and utterly, utterly wrong. And I know this sounds pathetic but I got a bit teary in the police station when I was telling the nice desk sergeant lady that I'm not a bad person and not a threat to anyone, and it would be nice if someone could call off the goons. I don't like to be made to feel like this. I've been "put" in this position, and I haven't deserved it.

Bilderberg is about positions of control. I get within half a mile of it, and suddenly I'm one of the controlled. I'm followed, watched, logged, detained, detained again. I'd been put in that position by the "power" that was up the road.

Likewise, the Bilderberg delegates occupy a position of power over the bobbing ignorance of the people patting beach balls in the sea, and me with my crappy little camera and my curiosity and my ill-formed sense of citizenship. I may not be very good at bearing witness here, but I'm doing my best. I haven't shinned over the fence and shoved a camera in David Rockefeller's face but I don't want to be shot in the forehead.

A final thought for the day. In the fable, the men may have been blind but they did at least get to grope the elephant before trying to describe it. Now shove that elephant in the back of a blacked-out Mercedes S600, whisk it off into a luxury Greek resort, circle it with heavily armed guards and helicopters, hand it a Martini, and pay the local police to harass, detain and follow anyone showing even the slightest interest of grabbing a flank. That, my friend, is the beast that is Bilderberg 2009.

[faceless]

"This man is following me. It's true. I'm not imagining things."
Our man at Bilderberg: 'You are not allowed to take pictures of policemen!'
Charlie Skelton is scared, jumpy and hacked off at the police state built around Bilderberg. So hacked off, in fact, he has asked the police to stop following him. Bad move.
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 17 May 2009

I need to go back a day and tell you exactly how I came to be in an Athens metro station at 8am, grappling with two strange men, struggling and yelling: "Help me somebody! Security! Please! Someone get security! Get the police!" My voice still hurts. My brain is ready to explode. But that is today. Yesterday divides in half: the half where I flee the Bilderberg resort, too scared and strung out to remain, and the half when I have to bundle myself in a random cab and drive to the British Embassy for my own safety.

I am being hounded. And all because I dared report on Bilderberg. Because I dared point my finger at them, there, in the darkness of a seaside peninsula. Ecce Bilderberg! I am not lying. I am not exaggerating. I am not imagining. I am not hysterical. If anything, I became incredibly calm when I finally stopped being the ­criminal, stopped being the hare, and grabbed one of the men who's been following me. I was turning the madness back in on itself, grabbing their wrists and plunging all of us further down the rabbit hole.

So yes, to be clear, I've just been tussling with two men in the bleak marble atrium of an Athens Metro station. But that was this morning. I haven't even had breakfast yet. I need to tell you about yesterday. I wrote the words below a thousand years or so before all that's happened to me in central Athens. See me now, back in Vouliagmeni, sitting in a cafe by the sea, being watched (of course) while I sip my orange juice. It is another beautiful day on the Greek Riviera …

* * *

That's it, I'm done, I'm gone. Believe me when I say, I feel physically intimidated; I feel afraid. I've had my own little seaside dip into a police state and the water's coming over my head. If you've ever been bullied you'll know exactly what I'm feeling: the tightness in the chest, looking both ways down corridors, hating the fear, hating your mind for asking "am I safe here? Am I safe?" I've been bullied out of Vougliameni, bullied away by Bilderberg for daring to be near.

I am leaving the toxic orbit of Bilderberg so I can breathe freely. So I can walk down a sidestreet without being followed by plainclothes policemen. I'm tired of men in the lobby, men on the stairs, the same men in different doorways, on different corners wherever I go. Cars pulling away from the kerb when I approach. The same cars, the same feelings. I'm tired of complaining at the station. I've complained three times now, and the final time turned nasty. They denied outright I was being followed. "This is an idea in your mind!" I showed them a photo I took today, when I took my tail on a looping stroll through the hills, waited round a corner, and snapped him unawares. They're not very good at this, but that just makes it worse. If they were a bit more subtle I could pretend they weren't there.

I have been made to feel weak, but buried in my weakness is a fury. How dare they make me feel like this. How dare they! They have turned this corner of the Greek Riviera into east Berlin (a helicopter circles above me as I type these words, I swear) and I haven't the backbone to brazen it out. Checkpoint Charlie here I come.

Of all the things I am furious about, the one that rankles the most is the fact that I've become jumpy. It's crazy that I'm keeping my room door open as I pack, and the balcony door. Two exits. It's crazy that I've started checking the bathroom and the wardrobe when I enter. That I'm taking photographs of my laptop when I leave the room, and finding it moved. I want to be in the open, in the sunlight, in front of people. I crave the fresh air of Athens city centre, and that's saying something.

Nor am I imagining things - this is not an "idea in my mind". And how extraordinary that I have to write that. It is shocking and upsetting that I have to justify my sanity, defend my perceptions and stand in a police station being told I am imagining things. I showed them the photo of the man I caught round the corner. An officer asks, absurdly: "How from this photograph do you say he is following you? I just see a man." I take a deep breath. "Well, yes, he isn't holding a sign which says 'I am following Charlie Skelton' so I suppose you have to take my word for it."

In comes the chief. Bossios Hoggios. "What the problem?" I tell him that I am being followed by the police, and that I would like it to stop, or be told the reason. "Why you here?" he barks. I tell him I am here for the Bilderberg conference at the Astir Palace. "Well, that is the reason! That is why! We are finished!" And he washes his hands of me, dismissing me with a gesture, striding back to his office. "Idiot," I mutter, unheard.

Back to the photograph.

"How you know he is a policeman?"

"I know that he is, I've seen him talking to your colleagues at the checkpoint."

"You are not allowed to take photos of policemen."

"So I am being followed by policemen?"

He gestures out of the window.

"Where is he now, this man you say following you? Show me him."

I'm standing in a police station. I don't know what to say. They tell me to ring the police if I see them again. To ring the police if I see the police following me. I shouldn't have called the officer an idiot. I shouldn't have raised my voice and derided the craziness of the situation. I'm not in a friendly room any more, so I decide to leave. I clap my hands together with as much mockery as my anger allows, and cry: "We are finished!" I wash my hands of the Greek police. But I'm not done with Bilderberg.

I finish my orange juice, pick up my rucksack, and walk down the street to hail a cab. Which is when I'm detained for the third time. I'm a good half mile from Bilderberg, trying to leave the resort, sick of it all, but Checkpoint Charlie has just slammed in my face. "You take photographs!" I'd done no such thing. I was waiting for a cab. "Show me your camera! Why you here?!"

They circle round. Local cops, a riot officer, two private "security" men. I looked at their lanyards: Avion Security. One of the Avion goons prods me with his walkie-talkie. "Why you here?" I tell him, wearily, that I'm a journalist. He rubs his chin and says the words that even in a 30-degree sun turn my blood to ice. "Show me your papers."

-------------------------

[faceless]

This is the plainclothes policeman I apprehended outside the Metro. I grappled with him and his partner in the atrium. Fond memories ...
Our man in Bilderberg: Six days to lost innocence
At the end of the annual secret meeting of the global elite, a call of nature feeds Charlie Skelton's worst fears
Charlie Skelton
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 18 May 2009

Thanks to my needing the loo in the department of government security, I've finally found out what's been happening to me; why my world has turned 16 shades of meatball since stumbling six days ago into the mad, bad and dangerous-to-know world of Bilderberg. My story is over. Here's how it ends ...

* * *

The meeting has been airless and fruitless. It has been the usual "How you know these are policemen?" and "Do you have the numbers of the motorbikes?" – the same old belittling of my word and my intelligence. I explain again: "The detective at Omonioa police station told me that the two men following me, the two men I fought with in the metro station, were police officers. He said ...," and here I flip open my reporter's notebook, the one I found randomly in the street yesterday, my talisman, and read the quote: "'They are police. They are just doing their job, nothing else.' These men were the ones giving orders to the men in uniforms. And I was detained, even though I was the one who called the police. Can you tell me what is going on?"

"We have no information." I turn to the captain's colleague. Same face. "We know nothing about this incident." I've barely sat down and they "know nothing about this incident". I ask them directly: "How do you know that you know nothing?" "We are the department that ... we look after the state, the government." "You protect politicians, government buildings?" "Exactly. As a department we are interested mostly with anarchism and the people who do illegal actions. But of course, we don't know all the anarchist people ..."

So why have I been sent here? Why this department in particular? To the Ypodieftinsi Kratikis Asfalias – the department of government security? I ask them directly: what is my status here in Greece, what happens when they look up my name, am I a criminal? The deputy answers: "Only if you do a crime do you have a record. If you have not done a crime in Greece or in your home country you do not have a record. It is illegal to keep personal information on European citizens." That's comforting.

I ask again why I am being followed. I ask him if he thinks it's a problem that I've been so threatened by people following me around Athens that I took a cab to my own embassy. "No, I don't think you have a problem. They only follow you to see where you are going. I think they don't want to harm you. And if they do want to harm you, I'd sooner they don't do that in Athens." His words. Written in my notebook.

"They follow you from police station to police station. They know that you have informed police that you are threatened. They are more careful now." Glad he can see so clearly into the minds of the men (certainly not policemen, of course) who've been chasing me around.

I show him the photo I took of the man I grappled with in the metro station. The one whose partner shoved me about and forgot that he wasn't a police officer, pointing into the little metro police office, screaming at me "Get in here! Get in here!" and marching in ahead of the uniformed officers. In charge. I ask the captain if he recognises the man. "No."

I show him another photograph, of a man I saw coming out of this building, yesterday, when I came to arrange an appointment. He was one of the pair who arrested me the second time in Vouliagmeni, for taking photographs of car wheels. We recognised each other and laughed as we passed. I took his photograph. I showed the photograph to the officers. Bless them, they couldn't help but smile. Hands wiped across mouths to become stern. Glad they're taking this in such good spirits. "So you recognise him?" Serious faces now. "He reminds me of someone I know, but ... no ... I don't know him." They're quoting me lines from bad movies.

It's going nowhere. I get the address of another police department, get the captain's name, and ask his advice. I could use it. "Here in Greece we have a saying, we hold a small basket to anything we hear and to anything we see. I do not have big expectations for your situation."

The interview is over, I've been successfully stonewalled, nothing confirmed, nothing certain. The cloak of Bilderbergian darkness still envelops me. I'm going to go to the Acropolis and scratch rude words in a pillar or something. Anarchist that I am. But first, I need the loo. And at this point, the captain makes his big mistake. He lets me go. And everything changes.

I am led along the sixth-floor corridor to the lavatory. And there, standing there – bam – right in front of my eyes, is one of the men who's been following me around Athens. The one who tailed me here on the first day. The one who I gave the slip to in my stairwell, and then quietly watched as he stood at the edge of the museum park, scouring the tourists. He was looking anxious. I waved cheerily when he finally spotted me. It was him. It was proof. Everything up until now could be fudged, denied, explained away, attributed to coincidence or paranoia, but not this.

I think he was as shocked to see me as I was to see him. He didn't know what to do, so he literally ran off. He ran away, into his office. I darted after him – what was I doing? I was yelling, I was pointing: "Here! One of the men! One of the men who's following me!" I whistled to the captain up the hall: "In here, he went in here!"

It was absolute, unbridled mayhem. Detectives came into the hall, people were shouting, I was led back up the hall. I was FUMING. I was shaking. I was angrier than I've ever been in my life. All I've been, all along, is lied to. Harassed and lied to. And I only caught them out because of an extra cup of coffee at breakfast.

The captain was in a tizz. "Wait here, we sort this all out now." Mutterings from next door. A minute later and I'm ushered into the boss's room. The chairs were plumper, the TV screen showing Eurovision highlights was bigger, and he was fatter. "Sit down." I sat.

"What's your problem?"

"I think you know what my problem is."

"There is no problem."

"I saw a man, up the hall, in the lavatory. One of the men who has been following me."

He looks me deep in the eye, not a blink.

"There was no man. You did not see any man."

My mouth actually fell open. I looked at him open-mouthed. There were no words. Again, it was just "an idea in my mind". I had imagined it all. I'd encountered a phantom taking a leak.

"Close your mouth. It is rude to sit like that with mouth open."

I wasn't blinking either as I said: "It's rude to lie."

"There was no man."

"Shall we go and ask him? He is just up the corridor."

"You go now."

"And that's the best you can do?" I looked around at the captain; at his colleague. "This is crazy."

"To you it is crazy. Not to me." He started punching numbers into his phone, it was over. "I have a job."

"I have a job, too."

But you know, it didn't matter what he said. I have been stalked and harassed by Greek government security, I have hidden from them in stairwells, challenged them in the street, tried to arrest them, and been lied to by them. The Greek prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis, was a delegate at Bilderberg 2009, and the special government security department of his police force has been protecting him from me. Protecting the dignitaries from a sort of journalist. A dangerous man. I wonder how much it all cost. How many thousand euro. I bet Greek taxpayers would love to know.

I haven't had time to reflect yet. This is me writing off the top of my head in a nice populous cafe attached to my hotel. Lots of people around. I'm too tired and baffled to think any more. I may not know a whole lot more about what went on at this year's Bilderberg, but I know what went on up the road, and further still, in Athens' city centre. I came to make a few cracks about Bilderberg and ended up getting sledgehammered in the nuts.

I tell you one thing: they're not very good at their job (unless their job was to freak me out). If I was the Greek prime minister I'd be out looking for better spooks. How about Avion? We know they were at Bilderberg, why not extend their contract ...?

Right now, all I want to do is to go home. I'm sitting here scared to go to the loo. I don't like the look of the stairs. I'm thinking of giving the bellboy €20 to stand outside while I pee. When I filled out my report in Sintagma police station, with the nice captain, he was obviously using the wrong paperwork because there was a box where it said: "Name of item lost." It was a lost property form. I wrote "innocence".

[Brown Sauce]

here's the full list (I think) of official 2009 invited wankers, nice to see that steering committee member Ken Clarke is there once again


Dutch Queen Beatrix,

Queen Sofia of Spain

Prince Constantijn Belgian Prince

Philip Ntavinion Etienne, Belgium

Joseph Akerman, Germany

Friends Alexander, United States (NSA)

Roger Altman, United States

Arapoglou, Greece (National Bank of Greece governor)

Ali Bampatzan, Turkey (Deputy Prime Minister responsible for economy)

Francisco Balsemao bidet, Portugal

Nicholas Bavarez, France

Franco Bernampe, Italy (Telecom Italia)

Xavie Bertran, France

Carl Bildt, Sweden (Secretary)

January Bgiorklount, Norway

Christoph Blocher, Switzerland

Alexander Bompar, France,

Boten Anna, Spain

Henri de Kastios, France

Juan-Luis Themprian, Spain

Clark Edmunds, Canada

Kenneth Clarke, Great Britain (TD Bank Financial Group)

Luc Cohen, Belgium

George David, Greece

Richard Ntiarlav, Great Britain

Mario Dragan, Italy (Italia VANCA d)

Elntroup Anders, Denmark

John Elkan, Italy (Fiat SRA)

Thomas Enders, Germany (Airbus SAS)

Jose Entrekanales, Spain

Isintro phenomena casket, Spain

Naial Fergkiouson, United States (Harvard University)

Timothy Gaitner, United States (Minister of Finance)

Ntermot convergence, Ireland (AIV Group)

Donald Graham, United States (Washington Post Company)

Victor Chalmperstant, Netherlands (Leiden University)

Ernst hirsh Ballin, Netherlands

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. (Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan)

Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, Netherlands (CC NATO)

James Jones, the U.S. (National Security Advisor to the White House)

Vernon Jordan, United States

Robert Keigkan, United States

Girki Katainen, Finland

John profit Britain (Royal Dutch Shell)

Mustafa Kots, Turkey (Group Kots)

Roland GT, Germany

Sami Cohen, Turkey (Journalist)

Henry Kissinger, United States

Marie Zose Ktavis, United States (Iudson Institute)

Neli Kroes, the Netherlands (European Commissioner for Competition)

Odysseas Kyriakopoulos, Greece (Group S & B)

Manuela Fereira mode, Portugal (PSD)

Bernarntino Leon, Spain

Jessica Matthews, United States

Philip Meis Tant (EIB)

Frank MakKena, Canada (TD Bank Financial Group)

John Mikelthgoueit, Great Britain (journalists, The Economist)

Tieri Montmprian de France (Franse Instituut) Tieri Montmprian de France (French Institute)

Mario Monti, Italy (University Louitzi Bokoni)

Angela Miguel Moratinos, Spain (Minister of Foreign Affairs)

Craig dirty, U.S. (Microsoft)

Egkil Miklempast, Norway

Mathias A, Germany

Olive Denis, France (Le Nouvel Observateur)

Frederick Ountea, France (Societe Generale)

Avg Ozntemir, Germany (Green Party)

Tomazo Pantoa-Siopa, Italy

Papalexopoulos Dimitris, Greece (Titan)

Richard Pearl, United States (Αmerican Enterprise Institute)

David Petreous, United States (head of the Central Administration of the U.S. Armed Forces)

Pint Manuel, Minister of Finance of Portugal

Robert Pritsarnt, Canada (Totstar Corporation)

Romano Prodi, Italy (former Italian Prime Minister)

Heather Raisman, Canada (Indigo Vooks & Music Inc.).

Eivint Reitan, Norway

Michael Rintzier, Czech Republic

David Rockefeller, U.S.

Dennis Ross, United States

Ruby Barnet, United States

Alberto Rouith-Gkalarthon, Spain

Susan Sampantzi Ntintzer, Turkey

Ιntira Samarasekera, Canada

Rountol Solten, Austria

Jürgen Stemp, Germany

Pedro Solbes Mira, Spain (Ministry of Finance)

Sampatzi Saraz, Turkey (banker)

Sanata Seketa, Canada (University of Canada)

Samer Lawrence, United States

Peter Sutherland, Ireland

Martin Taylor, UK

Peter Thiel, USA

Agan Ourgkout, Turkey

Eye Vanchanen, Finland, (Prime Minister)

Daniel Vazela, Switzerland,

Jeroen van der Veer, Netherlands

Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium (ex-Prime Minister)

Paul Volker, the U.S.

Jacob Valenmpergk, Sweden

Marcus Valenmpergk, Sweden

Nout Wellink, the Netherlands

Viser Hans, Netherlands

Martin Wolf, Great Britain (Financial Times Journalist)

James Goulfenson, United States (the former World Bank President)

Paul Goulfovits, United States

Farint Zakaria, United States (Analyst Journalist, Newsweek)

Robert Zoellick, United States (President World Bank)

Dora Bakoyannis, Greece (Minister of Foreign Affairs)

Anna Diamantopoulou, Greece (PASOK MP)

Papathanasiou, Greece (Minister of Finance)

Alogoskoufis, Greece (former Minister)

David, Greece (businessman, president of Coca-Cola 3E)

[luke]

Bilderberg 2010: Plutocracy with palm trees
The shadowy global elite is meeting in Sitges – and Charlie Skelton is there, hoping for a new spirit of CamCleggian openness

Another year, another Bilderberg. The first "participants" (as the delegates are known) won't be arriving until Thursday, but already the Hotel Dolce in Sitges is buzzing with anticipation. This Catalan seaside town hasn't hosted an event as large and politically sensitive as Bilderberg since the legendary 2008 Foam Party at the Mr Gay Sitges awards night.

Last year, Bilderberg was held in Vouliagmeni, on the coast just south of Athens. The Greek minister of finance attended, the minister of foreign affairs, and the governor of the National Bank of Greece. A few months later, Greece was bankrupt and Athens was in flames. So … good luck, Madrid!

Police are already stretching their red stripy tape around the hotel, and zipping up and around the local roads in their squad cars, sniffing for trouble. I'm really hoping there's none to find. The Spanish are promising a beach party and an "awareness camp", with political discussion forums and meditation zones. I plan to spend at least part of Friday sitting cross-legged in a campsite, sending beams of white light up the hill and into the hotel. Feel my love, Marcus Agius – Chairman of Barclays and senior non-executive director on the BBC's new executive board. Let it surround you, Queen Sofia of Spain. Don't fight it, president of the World Bank. You can't beat the love.

It would be nicer if the interface between Bilderberg and the world could be softer – if it could turn an open face towards us, rather than the barrel of a machine gun. What I'm hoping is that this year, in the all-new CamCleggian spirit of openness and political transparency, any British elected official who attends the meeting – and I'm talking to you, Kenneth Clarke and George Osborne – will tell us they attended, tell us what they spoke about, and tell us what the next 12 months has in store. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Not that anyone is really asking. I've come along again this year because I had the horrible, nagging thought that no other journalists would.

Not that I'm a proper journalist. Hardly: consider me an interested citizen of the world come to bear witness to a peculiar, important, and unsettling event.

For a long and luxurious weekend at the Dolce Sitges, relishing its "new and creative buffet concepts" (a table with food on it), prime ministers will mingle with European royalty, with various EU commissioners, with representatives from Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, AIB, Deutsche Bank, Chase Manhattan and Royal Dutch Shell. They'll clink glasses with President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke (he is confirmed for this year). And join the Friday night conga line behind the US treasury secretary (Tim Geithner went last year; he goes a lot). We can reasonably expect the head of the Federal Reserve, the president of the World Bank, the secretary general of Nato … they've all attended in the past and many will attend again. So yes, important it is; to think otherwise is painfully naive (see below for the usual "just a big boys' club" comments …)

The conference hotel may be perched above a golf course, and boast two ping pong tables, but this four-day event isn't about who is better at table tennis, Ken Clarke or David Rockefeller (it's Rockefeller). This is about big business, global financial strategy and the economic future of Europe … if indeed it has one.

And most importantly, this four-day event doesn't start until Thursday – and continues all the way through the weekend – so if you're a PROPER journalist reading this, or a blogger, or simply a curious citizen of a Europe on teetering on the edge, then come along. Please come. I'll buy you a Catalan beer. I recommend the Rosita. It's fruity but ballsy – not unlike the winner of Mr Gay Sitges 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jun/02/charlie-skelton-bilderberg-spain

[luke]

Bilderberg 2010: The security lockdown begins
It's midday at the Bilderberg conference hotel – and that means helicopters, riot police and angry staff

"Congratulations!" grinned the man in charge of this year's Bilderberg conference, mustering as much sarcasm as a Dutchman could muster.

"You are the last guests here! You should have a banner!" he whooped, punching the air, wanting us gone. It's true – we had been dragging our heels as we left the Hotel Dolce Sitges. The folding tables were already being set up in the courtyard for participant lanyards and orientation packs. It was well past the midday "lockdown" of the hotel.

"Lockdown" at Bilderberg means that security is snapped securely shut – it means an unbreachable, Pentagon-like security cordon is tightened around this seaside hotel.

It means that hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of police, in various states of riot readiness, position themselves at every junction, every roundabout, along every road, layby and dirt track within a mile of the building. And every 15 minutes or so, ruining everyone's poolside naps, police choppers circle in the perfect sky above.

The helicopters started yesterday. The day before, as we were checking in, a couple of tourists in microlights came buzzing over the hotel before buzzing off towards the beach. For about two seconds, I thought: "Brilliant! That's how we're going to get photos! From the air!" Then I thought: "CIA snipers! Not so brilliant!".

We've made do with a few sneaky shots around the hotel and some hushed chats with the barstaff. We did a little undercover work. And, as a result, we can confirm the following people will definitely be attending this year's Bilderberg conference in Sitges.

I can't tell you how I know this. Let's just say we 'obtained' this information. Step forward if you hear your name.

1. Marcus Agius: The chairman of Barclays and a senior non-executive director on the BBC's new executive board. Married to Katherine, daughter of Edmund Leopold de Rothschild (I don't know why I mention that. Just a bit of family trivia – the sort of thing some people find interesting).

2. Josef Ackermann: The CEO of Deutsche Bank and a non-executive director of Shell.

3. General Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the US army and on the board of the US defence conglomerate General Dynamics.

4. Juan Luis Cebrián Echarri: The CEO and co-founder of El Pais; the CEO of Grupo Prisa (Spain's biggest publisher); on the board of directors of Le Monde.

5. Richard Holbrooke: Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan and a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations.

6. Gustavo A Cisneros Rendiles: A Venezuelan media mogul – one of the world's richest men.

7. Victor Halberstadt: Professor of public economics at Leiden University and international advisor to Goldman Sachs. President of the International Institute of Public Finance.

8. Roger Altman: The founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, "the most active investment banking boutique in the world" (their website says).

9. Joaquín Almunia: Senior Spanish member of the European commission.

10. W. Edmund Clark: President and CEO of the TD Bank Financial Group.

11. Jan H.M. Hommen: Chairman of the ING Group.

12. Jyrki Katainen: Minster of finance in Finland, chairman of the Finnish National Coalition party.

And they're just the tip of the Bilderberg. More names will emerge as the weekend progresses, and the long-lens snaps have started coming in. The police have started pushing us further from the roundabouts. We've had the first detentions and the first angry deletions of photographs by police.

Although quite why attending Bilderberg has to remain such a mystery remains a mystery. The blackened windows of the limousines, the desperate camera-dodging of the delegates.

Tony Blair attended in 1993, but lied about it in parliament. Why lie? Why hide? If it's a long weekend of ping-pong, why the secrecy? If it's a long weekend of global strategising, why not simply behave like adults and talk to the press about it?

The paranoia was riding high amongst the conference organisers. A pair of them talked about the 2006 Bilderberg conference in Ottawa, where the radio host Alex Jones led the protests with his megaphone.

"They were very close to the hotel," said one. Another looked shocked and asked: "Did they ever try to attack?" A shake of the head and the answer: "No, but it was very scary." A third leaned in: "This is the negative side of the welfare state. People have enough income, so they can do this – it's like a permanent threat."

What threat? That people concerned about the unfairness of the world should drape a banner over a police cordon? That they should shout their anger at the madness of asset-grabbing transnational corporations, whose chairmen are sipping beers with our elected officials? "It's like a permanent threat." Don't make me spit.

My wife, Hannah, felt the hard edge of paranoia as we left the hotel at lockdown. She decided she needed to do some last-minute printing (she suddenly felt the urge to print out a history of Sitges from the internet).

The concierge ushered her into the business centre, where she found herself in the middle of pulsing heart of Bilderberg. She sat down to print. She was spotted. A stern Dutch lady shouted coldly: "Take her to security!" and barked: "What is your name?"

Startled, Hannah remarked: "This isn't a very friendly hotel." The lady replied: "No, it's not a very friendly hotel." Not this week it isn't.

As we left finally left the unfriendly Dolce Sitges, as the plainclothes police gathered, a pallet of watermelons was being rolled into the service entrance alongside a lighting rig. The patio lights had been covered with orange cellophane.

It's going to be quite a show later, the opening night of Bilderberg – watermelons everywhere, greedy eyes glowing orange on the dancefloor.

"More watermelons!" shouts the CEO of Deutsche Bank. Twenty are rolled towards him in an instant. He stamps upon the first and hoots his joy into the orange air, as the DJ leans into the microphone: "And we have a request from Mr Kenneth Clarke, it's Another One Bites the Dust!"

A happy Ken tosses his cigar over his shoulder and takes to the disco floor. Not that Ken's been confirmed yet. He's probably relaxing in his constituency. Maybe someone should find out.

On Tuesday night, when we were at the bar working our way through their selection of Catalan beers, we asked the barman how big he reckoned the Bilderbergers' hotel bill would be.

He rolled his eyes and said: "You don't want to know how much they're paying for this!" He misunderstood. I really did.

If the cost of dinner at the Dolce is anything to go by, it'll be a whacking great tab. My advice to David Rockefeller – avoid the 'award winning' trout fillets. If you're hungry, try the black spaghetti with salmon meatballs to start.

What else…?

My top tips for Bilderberg 2010 participants:

The gazpacho is good but thin.

The righthand of the two ping-pong tables (if you're standing with your back to the sunloungers) has a tricky camber. Better go for the left-hander.

If you're on a budget, go to breakfast at 7am, then go again at half 10, so you can get breakfast and lunch out of the same buffet.

Don't drink the tapwater in the bedrooms. It's got more chlorine in it than the swimming pool.

The kiwifruit breakfast pastries are to die for.

The artichoke soup needs black pepper.

Go to the spa, have an Ayurvedic massage, and during it repeat the mantra: "It's ok if I don't own everything, it's ok if I don't own everything." Then get drunk and throw bread rolls at the stripper.

The staff are Catalan, not Spanish. Apart from the Argentinian bellhop. He's Argentinian.

Cancel three-quarters of your police protection. You don't need them, and they're costing other people money.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jun/03/bilderberg-spain-charlie-skelton

[luke]

Bilderberg 2010: Why the protesters are your very best friends
The people who are being detained, searched and questioned are not playing some game. They are deadly serious, and they are worried to death

Ivan was alone on the roundabout. He had been left in charge of the banners while everyone else ate breakfast.

He slipped an empty bottle of red wine into a binliner and stretched. At his feet was a chalk-drawn pyramid showing the structure of society, the word "pueblo" at the bottom, and the tip pointing up the hill towards Bilderberg. It's a short pyramid today, maybe half a heavily-armed mile from Rockefeller down to Ivan.

Ivan's bed last night – is it had been the night before – was the scrub by the roadside. "It's not so cold in my bag," he said. "A lot of times I travel in the mountains – in the mountains, you can sleep anywhere."

A lone Catalonian in green trousers, he clutched a leaflet and stood in the Sitges sun as, up the hill, billionaires and finance ministers ate kiwifruit patisseries.

The shame, the awful poignancy of Bilderberg, is that, for much of the time, there are more delegates up the hill than there are protesters at the foot of it.

On that point, there's something I'd like you to do. I'd like you to extend a grateful thought, a prayer of thanks, an idle nod of acknowledgment – a something, an anything – towards Ivan and all the others who have come to Sitges to bear witness to Bilderberg 2010.

These people are on your side, they are fighting your corner. And if you don't think it's a corner that needs fighting, or if it's a corner you think is being fought by the people up the hill ... well, good luck to you.

I want you to know, though, that the people who are crawling around on pine needles with long lenses, trying to identify delegates (and doing pretty well, by the way), the people who are being detained, searched, questioned, then heading out again into the hills, the people who are sitting late into the night at the campsite bar, talking about distracted populations and central banks, are not lunatics.

They are your very best friends. They're not feeble-minded or playing some kind of game. They are deadly serious, and they are worried to death.

These people look at the state of the world and they pack a rucksack and sleep at the side of a roundabout.

The head of the IMF (and Bilderberger), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, looks at the world and declares: "Crisis is an opportunity." He sees the precarious global economy and floats the idea for "a new global currency issued by a global central bank".

Now, if you think that's a good idea – if you think yet more centralisation of debt (and interest payments), and more unelected financial control is a good thing – then good luck (what are you? The chairman of Barclays?)

We already have a world, says Daniel Estulin, the arch Bilderbotherer, "where unelected bodies like the IMF can tell sovereign nations like Greece what to do".

Estulin is here in Sitges, wearing the fanciest trousers I've seen in a long time. He says the Bilderberg endgame is "one world company ltd". And the board of directors is sitting half a mile away.

And they're being watched. I can't say from where – I don't know where the guerilla camerafolk are out crawling today. And I can't ring them, because they've turned their mobiles off and taken out the sim cards so they can't be triangulated by the signal.

They're out getting sunstroke on your behalf, on my behalf. I'll publish some of their photos, and some of their spottings, tomorrow.

Later today, a bunch of Spanish activists are providing paella for everyone in a mountain restaurant. Some of us won't make it. Some of us will be under arrest, or lying in a ditch holding our breath until the footsteps pass.

One last time: if you think what they're doing is ridiculous, you're wrong. It's the fact they're having to do it at all that's absurd.

This morning, a policeman screeched up beside me as I went for a stroll and told me to take the recording device out of my pocket. I did. It was a bit of driftwood from the beach. Yesterday, I had my car searched (and was detained for 50 minutes while the Mossos d'Esquadra checked and rechecked my passport).

They asked me what was in the boot. I dug them out a T-shirt. The patrolman radioed the station and read out the slogan on the shirt in heavily accented English: "I went to Bilderberg 2010 and all I got was this lousy new world order." His partner asked me why I was laughing. I couldn't really explain.

BIlderberg is an absurdity. The secrecy is absurd. The lack of a relationship between the event and the mainstream media is absurd. Ivan standing alone by his roundabout bed is absurd. The paranoia of the participants is more than absurd – it's pathetic.

This year, most of the delegates were whisked into the hotel through an underground entrance, dodging the lenses, like a bunch of James Bond baddies, like a dieter creeping downstairs at midnight to eat chocolate cake from the fridge.

But the good news is that not everyone has dodged the cameras (John Elkann, the heir to Fiat, was spotted by the German blog Schall und Rauch looking particularly dapper this year). And the even better news – the very best news – is that the press seems, finally, to have woken up to Bilderberg.

We have had camera crews from Spanish TV and Spanish newspapers both local and national (Javier from El Mundo is currently up a tree with a camera). French journalists, Portuguese documentary makers and al-Jazeera are picking up the story. Russia Today has sent a film crew.

We've had articles in the Independent and the Times, and on the Today programme on Radio 4. Daniel Estulin has been doing interview after interview. He's getting quotes from inside the meeting. The veil of secrecy is looking decidedly tatty. It might be time to bin it.

And yet the veil of ignorance is still holding up pretty well. As Ivan says, handing me a leaflet from the Anwok collective, "it is difficult to talk about the Bilderberg agenda if people don't even know about the group".

I know what he means – I've spoken to countless news agencies and outlets in the last few weeks, and the most common response, from journalists, editors and commissioners, is: "I'm sorry, the Bilderberg what?"

But seriously, if you work on the foreign desk of a major news corporation and you're at the "Bilderberg what?" level of political awareness, you need to think about getting a different job. Take a sabbatical. Take up carpentry, or read a book. It's like calling yourself a porn star and not knowing the reverse cowgirl. "The reverse what...?"

Get with the programme. Shimmy up a pine tree. Take a leaflet. Resign. You're not helping anyone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jun/04/bilderberg-charlie-skelton-protesters

[Brown Sauce]

AP) Fidel Castro is showcasing a theory long popular both among the far left and far right: that the shadowy Bilderberg Group has become a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

The 84-year-old former Cuban president published an article Wednesday that used three of the only eight pages in the Communist Party newspaper Granma to quote - largely verbatim - from a 2006 book by Lithuanian-born writer Daniel Estulin.

Estulin's work, "The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club," argues that the international group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland.

Castro offered no comment on the excerpts other than to describe Estulin as honest and well-informed and to call his book a "fantastic story."

Estulin's book, as quoted by Castro, described "sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists" manipulating the public "to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self."

The Bilderberg group's website says its members have "nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern" once a year, but the group does nothing else.

It said the meetings were meant to encourage people to work together on major policy issues.

The prominence of the group is what alarms critics. It often includes members of the Rockefeller family, Henry Kissinger, senior U.S. and European officials and major international business and media executives.

The excerpt published by Castro suggested that the esoteric Frankfurt School of socialist academics worked with members of the Rockefeller family in the 1950s to pave the way for rock music to "control the masses" by diverting attention from civil rights and social injustice.

"The man charged with ensuring that the Americans liked the Beatles was Walter Lippmann himself," the excerpt asserted, referring to a political philosopher and by-then-staid newspaper columnist who died in 1974.

"In the United States and Europe, great open-air rock concerts were used to halt the growing discontent of the population," the excerpt said.

Castro - who had an inside seat to the Cold War - has long expressed suspicions of back-room plots. He has raised questions about whether the Sept. 11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government to stoke military budgets and, more recently suggested that Washington was behind the March sinking of a South Korean ship blamed on North Korea.

Estulin's own website suggests that the 9/11 attacks were likely caused by small nuclear devices, and that the CIA and drug traffickers were behind the 1988 downing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that was blamed on Libya.

The Bilderberg conspiracy theory has been popular on both extremes of the ideological spectrum, even if they disagree on just what the group wants to do. Leftists accuse the group of promoting capitalist domination, while some right-wing websites argue that the Bilderberg club has imposed Barack Obama on the United States to advance socialism.

Some of Estulin's work builds on reports by Big Jim Tucker, a researcher on the Bilderberg Group who publishes on right-wing websites.

"It's great Hollywood material ... 15 people sitting in a room sitting in a room determining the fate of mankind," said Herbert London, president of the Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan policy think tank in New York.

"As someone who doesn't come out of the Oliver Stone school of conspiracy, I have a hard time believing it," London added.

A call to a Virginia number for the American Friends of Bilderberg rang unanswered Wednesday and the group's website lists no contact numbers.

Castro, who underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006 and stepped down as president in February 2008, has suddenly begun popping up everywhere recently, addressing Cuba's parliament on the threat of a nuclear war, meeting with island ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry, writing a book and even attending the dolphin show at the Havana aquarium.